If I could copy and paste this into the article, I would. It was getting too long, but the 2nd point I wanted to make was that their global influence tactics seem outdated (not only defensive.)

The things they're doing with Africa and Sri Lanka, the Road and Belt stuff, are straight up colonial cactics. The way they're "spreading their influence" through their hundreds of Confucius institutes-reminds me of how religions send pilgrims (or whatever they're called) to other countries to spread their religions. Since 2004, they've enrolled a grand total of 9 million students across the globe. Come on, a decent netflix show has more global influence.

Their other stuff, like the isolation stuff, is again very reminiscent of the Cold War, that's why I'm so keen to compare them to North Korea and Soviet Union.

They do have a few modern hits-the Huawei, the TikTok- but as we've seen, it's pretty easy for the U.S. to find an excuse to mess with their business if it gets too big. And, let's be frank, there are other phone brands out there, and there are other social media platforms out there, it's not like they really ever had an undisputable competitive advantage in anything.

Compare that to Apple, which basically invented a market of its own. Or even something like K-pop, which put Korea into hearts and souls of billions of people worldwide.